Post #245

💎The Mother of All Diamonds [ History ] From November 17 to 21 serious guys gathered in Dubai atthe ministerial meeting of the Kimberley Process, a platform meant to ensure that diamonds do not finance violence or shady schemes. Although the process has long outlived its usefulness, it is interesting to look back at where this entire diamond story began. ⚠️Meet the Big Hole of Kimberley! It is a man-made crater so enormous that it still looks unreal at first sight. Around 50,000 people dug it by hand, and in just four decades extracted about 14.5 million carats of diamonds - roughly 3 tons. The pit reached a depth of about 240 meters and a width of around 463 meters. ➡️Diamonds were discovered here in 1871 on the Vooruitzicht farm, which belonged to the De Beer brothers. News spread quickly, and almost overnight a tent settlement called New Rush appeared - the settlement that later became the city of Kimberley. ➡️ But Kimberley was more than just a mine. This was the birthplace of De Beers, the company that would later dominate the entire global diamond market. ➡️ Interestingly, the company that still carries the name of those same farmer brothers was not founded by them. De Beers was created by Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato, who in 1888 established De Beers Consolidated Mines. By the 1980s the company effectively controlled around 90% of the global diamond supply. True, we can make bigger holes today. However, The Big Hole is a monument to the countless lives and harsh labor, which built a whole city nearby and gave rise to a company that set the rules of the diamond market for more than a century. #History Devils Below